Manchester Castle was a medieval fortified manor house, probably located on a bluff where the rivers Irk and Irwell meet, near to Manchester Cathedral, where Chetham's School of Music now is,[1] putting it near the edge of the medieval township of Manchester (grid reference SJ839989).

[5] Before the manor house was built, Manchester Castle may have taken the form of a ringwork[1] constructed from timber and with a wooden palisade.

[2] In his book Warfare in England (1912), author and historian Hilaire Belloc identified the "Manchester Gap", between the Pennines and the Mersey estuary, to be one of the two most important defensive lines in medieval England along with the line of the River Thames.

Although Belloc ascribed great importance to Manchester and its notional ability to hamper troop movements, castle historian D.J.

Cathcart King refuted Belloc as the site was forgotten at an early date.